Who Tries, Does
by Thistlerose
Summary: AU. A brief look at what might have happened had Canth reached Wirenth's mating flight before Pridith. F'nor/Brekke and Canth/Wirenth.


**Note: The first two paragraphs are taken directly from Chapter XII of **_**Dragonquest**_** by Anne McCaffrey.**

_Brekke was conscious of nothing but Wirenth. For she was suddenly Wirenth, contemptuous of the bronzes trying to catch her as she sped upward, eastward, high above the mountains, until the land below was hollow black and sand, the flash of blue lake in the sun blinding. Above the clouds, up where the air was thin but speed enhanced._

_And then, out of the clouds below her, another dragon._

A brown, trumpeting a challenge to the pursuing bronzes.

A brown? Wild with desire and the sensual freedom of flight, Wirenth did not recognize him, and hissed at the presumption; only bronzes flew queens! True, this brown was as big as any of the bronzes pursuing her, and handsome in the early morning light…

Well, if he thought himself a match for her bronzes, let him prove it!

Bugling, Wirenth twisted and plunged back through the clouds toward the snow-capped mountain peaks. The bronzes and the brown followed. Keeping her wings folded close to her body, Wirenth wondered which of her pursuers was closest. Orth? She longed to turn back and look, but dared not take her eyes off the knife-sharp crags.

So she flirted and exulted in her own beauty and power. The air was cold and sweet in her throat and along her flanks. Occasionally, she saw flashes of burnished gold and recognized her own reflection in frozen mountain lakes and waterfalls. After a time, though, she became bored and soared upward again.

The clouds had thinned by now, and once she'd cleared them, she allowed herself a glance back. There were her suitors, and there, below _them_ but rising swiftly, as glowingly golden as herself – Pridith. Coming to steal her bronzes!

Wirenth's scream tore the air and started small avalanches in the mountains below. Pridith gave an answering cry and the bronzes, confused by the appearance of a second queen, paused in mid-air. Frustrated, furious, Wirenth dove, her claws extended, her teeth bared. She would plow through the bronzes, scatter them like so many dead leaves, and rend Pridith's flesh from her bones. How _dare_ she?

Some of the bronzes, still stunned by the abrupt change of mood, moved to evade her, but one rose, wings flung wide as if to bar her passage. Viciously, Wirenth slashed at him, and though he bugled in pain as her claws scored his hide, he did not yield.

Now she recognized him. Not a bronze, but the brown – Canth. _Canth?_ Why did he interfere? Why did he not let her go? She screamed at him, batted at him, but his wings fouled her claws and his head butted her breast, driving her back. And suddenly, for the first time since she'd risen, she was aware of Brekke:

_Stay, my love! Stay with me!_

Wirenth tossed her head, rebellious. The bronzes were leaving her for Pridith. _Her_ bronzes. Pridith and Canth were ruining everything.

Then Canth began to croon, in pain, in entreaty. And Brekke said again, her voice in Wirenth's head laced with fear, _Stay with me! Stay, Wirenth! Stay with us!_

Stay? Her only escape now, as Canth's limbs twined with hers, was _between_. Brekke realized that too, and begged her, ordered her not to go. But why should she go? _Between_ was so cold, so dark, but here she had sunlight on her back, and her beloved Brekke, and Canth—

Faithful Canth. The bronzes had deserted her for Pridith, but he had stayed. Her Canth, her mate. The fury went out of Wirenth and she surrendered, not just to her captor, but to gravity. Down she went through the rushing air and Canth went with her. He would not, she knew, let her fall too far.

***

Brekke awoke with a start and sat up. Disoriented, she gathered her limbs close to her body, hugging her legs, and dropped her chin to her knees. She was in her own weyr, naked, cold, and strangely achy. Her heart shivered in her chest like a trapped bird.

What had happened? In her last conscious moment, she'd been outside. It had been morning. She remembered the sun rising over the High Reaches, turning the snow a rosy gold. The lake had been polluted, they'd discovered. Kylara had gone, and Wirenth—

_Wirenth?_

Her dragon did not answer immediately, and for three clanging heartbeats, Brekke was unaccountably terrified. _Wirenth?_

Then, slowly and somewhat petulantly, _I was sleeping._

"I'm sorry," Brekke murmured.

Her voice and movements roused F'nor, who turned his head on the sleeping furs and smiled up at her drowsily, without opening his eyes. "What is it?" She did not answer, and he must have sensed her distress because he was suddenly fully awake and on his knees beside her. "Brekke?" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently until she raised her head. "Brekke, what _is _it?"

His fingers digging into her shoulders, the sight of his dear, careworn face and disheveled hair broke the strange spell she'd been under. Memories of the previous day came flooding back to her. Dawn. The lake. Wirenth rising to mate. Canth's appearance, then Pridith's. The fight that had been averted, and the nightmare Brekke had plunged into after falling asleep in F'nor's arms.

With a strangled sob, she flung herself against him, grabbing with her hands, pressing with her cheek, as if she would meld their bodies. F'nor's arms hung slackly at his sides until she stilled, calmed by Wirenth's assurances that she was safe and loved, assurances Canth echoed. Then he held her.

"I dreamed I lost Wirenth," Brekke whispered. "She went _between _and I couldn't follow. I tried, but I couldn't, and I got so lost. So lost." Hot tears stung her eyes. She blinked rapidly, not wanting F'nor to know she wept over a _dream, _but he must have felt the flutter of her lashes against his breast. She felt him sigh, felt his arms tighten about her.

_I would never go where you couldn't follow, _said Wirenth, and Canth added, in a possessive tone that made Brekke smile even as she wept, _I would not let her._

"He wouldn't," F'nor agreed, his breath stirring her hair. "Canth keeps his promises. As do I. Didn't we say we'd be here when she rose? Though I could _kill _Kylara. How could she be so stupid? Shards, if Berd had found us only a few minutes later than he did, if Canth hadn't thought to go _between_ times—" He let the rest go unuttered, and Brekke was glad. If Canth hadn't been there to stop Wirenth from attacking Pridith… But that had been part of her dream.

Only a dream, Brekke thought. Wirenth was with Canth on the ledge outside the weyr, and she was with F'nor. After their lovemaking, she'd spent the night in his arms. Safe. As for Pridith and Kylara…

_Orth flew Pridith again, _Wirenth informed her with a contemptuous snort.

"T'bor is still Weyrleader," Brekke told F'nor. "I think Wirenth thinks that Orth could have done better."

_I did better, _ Canth put in so smugly that they both laughed.

"So you did," F'nor said, rocking Brekke in his arms. "And so did I."

After that, Brekke could not bring herself to think about Kylara or Pridith. They would not go unpunished, and that knowledge was enough for the moment. The pieces of her dream were falling away, into the shadowed corners of her memory, where they belonged. She kissed F'nor, first over the heart, then at the pulse at his throat. His fingers slid into her hair and he tilted her head back so that he could kiss her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, and her mouth. Out on the ledge, Wirenth and Canth rumbled approval, echoed minutely by Berd and Grall.

"That's four on our side," F'nor murmured as he lowered Brekke back to the sleeping furs. Keeping one arm looped around her shoulders, he began to stroke her, first in a reassuring manner, then more intimately as her body responded.

"What are we doing?" she whispered against his lips. "What have we _done?"_

He chuckled. His hand was now between her thighs. "Do you want a technical description? Move by move?"

"You _know _what I mean."

"I do." He nuzzled the soft underside of her chin. It tickled. "We've changed the world, Brekke. A little bit, anyway."

"Mmm." She felt suffused with warmth, with light and love. She wanted to open every part of herself to him, so he would see and know. Because she couldn't say the words. Even now, her upbringing got in the way and all she could say was, teasingly, "D-do you think they'll notice?"

F'nor's eyes were serious, though his lips quirked in a smile. "I have a feeling we're going to be in a great deal of trouble, once they decide we've had enough privacy. 'They' meaning the rest of the world. Should I be glad F'lar is ill, and likely doesn't have the strength to flay me? Maybe. Though Lessa will probably be more than happy to do it in his stead. Providing T'bor doesn't get to us first."

"Tradition is important. But why do you speak as if this were all _your _fault? I let this happen."

"Let?"

She grabbed his hand and clasped it to her, held it between her breasts. She said with a fierceness that startled them both, "_I _wanted this to happen. I did. And I'm glad, so _very _glad, F'nor. And I'm not afraid of what might happen next." And she wasn't. The realization made her feel powerful and, for perhaps the first time in her life, beautiful. As sensual as a queen in flight. "Let them come. So long as they don't separate us. And they _can't. _I won't let them."

_We won't let them, _Wirenth and Canth corrected.

"_Thread_ take tradition." And with those words, F'nor abandoned gentleness. But that was fine; by then, she was more than ready.

1/5/09


End file.
